Thumbs down to a handout
Will the last free-market enthusiast in the media turn off the light on the way out?
Wait! Not so fast! There is hope!
From Slate:
When President Barack Obama told the Toledo Blade last week that he hoped that the faltering newspaper industry would recover because “fact-based” and “investigative reporting” are “absolutely critical to the health of our democracy,” even some of the cynical bastards who staff the nation’s dailies swooned.
Of course, the president didn’t pay anything more than lip service to the newspapers. He remained, in the Blade’s words, “noncommittal” about the bills, including one by Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin, D-Md., introduced early this year that would allow newspapers to reorganize themselves as nonprofits. “I haven’t seen detailed proposals yet, but I’ll be happy to look at them,” Obama said.
The good news is there are journalists, like Jack Shafer (author of the Slate piece), who see this as a threat:
Here’s hoping that the White House’s detailed-proposals czar keeps the Cardin bill out of Obama’s hands. The last thing newspapers need is the sort of help from the government that turns them into NPR, endlessly begging for contributions, pursuing wealthy philanthropists, and standing in line for government handouts.
Shafer also quotes from Donald Kimelman from the Boston Globe:
Why should the tax laws give an advantage to newspapers over other kinds of media? How will the recipients of philanthropic dollars avoid having their news agendas distorted by donor preferences? Would the crutch of donor support hinder the search for new commercial revenue necessary for news organizations’ long-term viability?
Of particular interest is the recognition that the newspaper industry has already suffered from the Unintended Consequences of other interventions.
I haven’t done this piece justice… so please click through and read it for yourself.
Here’s to the hope that journalists can turn use these same notions to be just as critical of other bailout and spending plans, that have their own Unintended Consequences.
